There’s a lot of choice in Tobago for such a small island. You can eat delicious local fayre for less than £3 per head, or go the whole hog at one of the top hotel restaurants and dine on tournedos rossini with morels and roquefort. Good restaurants have been springing up all over Tobago and there is now good choice in price, variety and ambience. You can eat well if you’re self catering, with lots of fresh food options and very good prices. More about that later. 

In between, there are plenty of restaurants offering fresh fish, steak (the local beef is delicious), chicken and lots of Caribbean veg and fruit, like paw paw, mango  and breadfruit.  Expect to pay at least £10 per head for a meal at a good non-local food restaurant. Prices are much the same as at home in the hotels and good restaurants.  Again, more later.

You'll see food names around the island that you may not recognise but are delicious local dishes that you may want to try, and are local favourites -  

A typical Tobago family meal could consist of
peas and rice
- callalloo - a sort of coconut and spinach soup
- curried crab and dumpling - whole blue crabs in spices
- chicken pelau - slow cooked chicken with coconut, spices and rice
- pea soup - a thick soup of fresh picked peas, dasheen, sweet potato, flavoured with bacon
- roti - a thick curry of chick pea and potato with either beef, chicken, lobster or goat, wrapped takeaway style in a kind of flour   tortilla
- provision - local vegetables
- bake - delicious fried bread rolls usually stuffed with something yummy like fish or meat

Roti has to be the best value meal on the island. It's Tobago's equivalent of fish and chips. If you see a sign for roti, get some. It's an Indian chapatti style pancake , wrapped up around a thick curry of potato and chick peas with either chicken, beef shrimp or goat. It's absolutely scrummy and if you pay more than £1 in the street booths you've been had. 
  

Tobago boys & blue crabs

Crab and dumpling is a must. Tobago has blue land crabs that tend to live in holes by the edge of the roads. They're caught and cooked whole in their shells with curry sauce and served with flour dumplings. Yum. When it rains, the crabs tend to come out from their roadside hiding places, and if the children are on their way home from school, you'll see them catching crabs to take home for mum to cook for tea.

Most of the eating out places are concentrated in the Crown Point area. Here you can go to a good restaurant, get pizza or burgers, ice cream, fresh fish or local dishes. There’s lots happening.  

A popular favourite in Tobago at the moment is Pelican Reef in Crown Point. It’s a beautiful restaurant, with attentive staff and lovely decor. We loved the fact that the chairs are on casters! Makes for less noise and ease of movement. The food is beautifully presented. Delicious steaks, fish, chicken, good wine list and yummy desserts. Expect to pay at least £15 per head for main course food. We highly recommend it.    
Reservations: 001 868 660 8000;  Tel/Fax: 001 868 631 8080; e-mail: jazar@tstt.net.tt

Me Shells has a superb menu

Me Shells impressed us too. On the corner of Shirvan Road and Old Buccoo Road. Nice decor, well spaced out and attentive staff. Starters include a seafood crepe - about £4, deep fried shrimp with a passion fruit marmalade for less than £3.50, then you can have lobster, or the Castara Curry or steak. Main courses are from about £7. Wine is about £2.50 by the glass. Children’s meals include ‘Flying Fish and Chips’. A huge portion of chunky fresh fish with chips and vegetables.  Tel: 001 868 631 0353 ; Fax: 001 868 639 0574; E-mail meshe@tstt.net.tt

Tobago has its own top notch Italian restaurant - 'La Tartaruga' - run by the entertaining Gabriele. This restaurant is a car drive to the non-tourist village of Buccoo. The food here is as good as anything you could get in Rome, and the service is embarrassingly good. Michael Winner would find it hard to complain, and that’s saying something. Gabriele truly entertains you with his effervescent rundown of tonight's menu - and of how his mama has had the parmesan and olive oil flown in from Italy. This is an expensive meal out but well worth it. Expect to pay £25 plus per head for drinks and main course - there’s usually a mouth watering line up of freebie starters. 
Tel: 001 868 639 0940; Fax: 001 868 639-5482; E-mail latartarugatobago@hotmail.com
Gabriele now has a very good website you can check out for menus and prices www.latartarugatobago.com
 

The Seahorse Inn is in a beautiful setting overlooking Stonehaven Bay - this popular restaurant has an extensive menu featuring everything from Tobago's blue crab or lobster - to ribeye steak or island duck. Liqueur coffees, fine wines and malt whiskies are all on offer here, with mouthwatering desserts. Starters are from about £3 - a good steak will cost you about £15.
Tel: 001 868 639 0686; Fax: 001 868 639 0057; E-mail seahorse@trinidad.net

Dillon's Seafood restaurant in Crown Point is another old favourite. Crayfish, kingfish, lobster, crab etc, etc. Prices about £15 - £20 per head for food and drink. 

Bonkers is popular. A lot is packed into a very small place - bar, pool, chalets, and dining area - but the food is good and reasonably priced. Lots of fishy things on the menu, and pork and steak dishes. Nice atmosphere. Kids will love to find the toucan that lives in a large cage behind trees at the restaurants entrance.

A super restaurant in Scarborough is the Blue Crab. It's half way up the hill in Scarborough. It’s extremely popular, especially with the local businessmen, and wise to book. For about £8 you get a plateful of local cuisine - maybe grilled fish with avocado, fried plantain, pigeon peas, dasheen, vegetable rice, coo-coo, and salad. 
Tel: 001 868 639-2737; Fax: 001 868 660-7748 

Heading out across the island, the gastronomic treats don’t end. The Arnos Vale Waterwheel is a spectacular setting in the rainforest. Starters include crab spring rolls or stuffed mushrooms for about £5,  then roast duck breast, fried Mahi Mahi or rack of lamb for about £15.  There is an outdoor theatre for live entertainment - a pretty spectacular setting for it. 
Tel: 001 868 660 0815 ; Fax: 001 868 660 0814

Out at Speyside there’s the famous Jemma’s treehouse restaurant. It’s not licensed but does fab chicken and fish dishes, right over the sea edge. There’s also Manta Lodge’s restaurant - Green Moray Eel. Here you can get things like yellow pea soup, seafood crepes, chicken supreme with saffron rice and vegetables all for really good prices and with a daily menu change. 

The Cascreole Restaurant in Castara is a great local find. It’s on the beach and has a great menu. You can get all the usual local fish dishes for less than a tenner, soups, salads, and then there’s shrimp, a long list of chicken dishes, kebabs, T bone steaks, pork and lamb, all for between £6 and £10. Tel: 001 868 685 4101

For breakfast you can eat out well too. The House of Pancakes at Crown Point on the road to Scarborough is well worth a visit. Not just for the treat of eating an American style breakfast in the fresh air and with the radio on, but for the comfort of the surroundings. This is the personal home of a local man and his American wife, and you really do feel like you're personal house guests. Good value, and makes a nice change when you get a little fed up with fresh fruit breakfasts and want a bit of cholesterol. 

A great find at the airport is Vie de France, believe it or not. Get yourself a great cappuccino or latte for less than a quid, a stack of pancakes or Belgian waffles with strawberries and cream for less than £2,  or flapjacks, bacon and eggs for a whopping £2.50. They do main meals too. 

The Hummingbird Hotel on the Store Bay Local Road does Full Monty breakfasts as well as full Roast Beef dinners with Yorkshire Pudding on Sundays. 

The Kariwak Hotel at Crown Point also does a great Sunday breakfast buffet for about £6, with fruit, cereals, yoghurts, omelettes and fresh local fish, with coffee, tea and hot chocolate. 
Tel: 001 868 639-8545; Fax: 001 868 639-8441; E-mail kariwak@tstt.net.tt

These are just some of Tobago's restaurants. There are a lot more, but we've been to all the above and can recommend them all. Check out up to date menu examples below. 

 
Doing it yourself 
If you’re self-catering, there are some good supermarkets open lateish, selling a good range of foodstuffs and beers and wine. Roadside stalls sell fresh fruit and veg - very cheap. And fresh fish can be bought just caught, at several spots around the island, in particular at Mount Irvine on a daily basis. Ask the locals where you can get fresh fish from, or just keep your eyes open.

Supermarkets include Penny Savers. There’s one near the Crown Point end of the island, on the main road to Scarborough.  There’s another near Carnbee, in between Mount Irvine and  Lambeau.

There’s also an excellent gourmet supermarket -  R.T.Morshead - off the Shirvan Road at Mount Pleasant. Here you can get hot roasted chickens, European cheeses, curry & pasta sauces, dairy products & cakes.
Tel: 001 868 639 8855 ; Fax: 001 868 639 7529 ; E-mail: j-morshead@trinidad.net

Fresh fish will cost you pence from the beach or roadside, minutes after the fishermen have brought their catch in. Dolphin fish (not the dolphin mammal), king fish, barracuda, and snapper are all readily available and easy to cook. Supermarkets sell frozen chicken, beef , pork and fish, rice, tinned goods and bread. Fruit and veg stalls are usually outside the supermarkets by the roadside. All are usually open late. Fruit and veg available include cabbage, carrots, onions, melon, pineapple, oranges, bananas, breadfruit, paw paw, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado and potatoes. 

We've done self-catering too and can highly recommend it in Tobago. The fresh local produce is delicious and cheap. It was in Tobago that we discovered how beef is really supposed to taste. 

Drink
You'll drink endless Caribs - the local beer - and rum punch. Carib is priced differently where ever you go. If you're in a hotel, you'll pay about the same as you would for a bottled beer at home. If you're self-catering, you can buy your Carib from the local bars for about 5 TT dollars - 50p - or even cheaper at the supermarket. The bars and supermarkets will give you money back on the bottles as well. Excellent local rum and Angostura bitters are used to make rum punch, and the staff don’t hold back on the measures! Wine can be expensive in Tobago. A cheap bottle from a supermarket will set you back at least £7. 

Bottled water is readily available in the shops if you’re cautious about drinking the tap water. 

If you’re one of those people who can’t live without their cup of tea or coffee - Typhoo and Nescafe are all there…... 

For an idea of what you can get in a Tobago restaurant, and what it'll cost you here are some samples below. ( Look out for the taxes when you go to a restaurant - it can step up the price of a meal considerably but note the exchange rate for us Brits at the moment is very good indeed) 

These menus are from hotels featured in this website.

 
Manta Lodge dinner menu sample:
Potato skins with cream cheese - about £2
Pan fried jumbo shrimp in garlic sauce - about £13
Fresh lamb chops  - about £10

Kariwak Holistic Haven set price dinner menu sample:
Set price of about £12
Onion soup or Tomato salad with fresh basil dressing 

Fish with Shrimp Sauce or Steak and herb butter
Lemon Rice and Fresh basil
or Roast Beef

Sauteed potatoes
Lemon cauliflower with fresh dill
Sweet red pepper with mushrooms

Kariwak Lime Pie

Bonkers lunch menu sample:
Special Hot Curried Goat - about £4
Tobago Fried Fish and Tomatoes - about £4
Steak and Salsa Salad - about £10

Bonkers dinner menu sample:
Tobago Crab Salad - about £3.50
Sizzling Jumbo Garlic Shrimp in a puree of Kuchela and Callalloo - about £14
Prime US Choice Ribeye Steak Grilled Calypso Style - about £18
Chunky Veg Casserole in an aromatic blend of herbs and spices - about £8

Seahorse Inn
Seafood crepes - about £5
Caesar Salad - about £4

Seafood Tempura - about £18
Island Duck - about £17
Catch of the day - about £10

Coco Reef lunch menu sample:
Hot Fish Chowder or Chilled Cucumber Soup - about £5
Goat’s Cheese wrapped in Filo served with Chargrilled Veg and Balsamic Dressing - about £12
A Cook-Up of Mussels with Pasta and a Crustacean Sauce - about £9
Rainforest Sandwich, Strictly Vegetables on Wholewheat - about £.50
Hamburger with fries and choice of topping - about £8

Coco Reef dinner menu sample:
Set price of about £30 for 3 courses

Chilled Carrot and Ginger Soup or Carpaccio of Beef or Tart of Zucchini with Walnut Oil or Herb Crusted Calf’s Liver with a Sauce of Chardonnay

Caribbean Mahi-Mahi with a Timbale of Couscous on a sauce Provencale
Grilled Pork Steak with Braised Cabbage in a Sherry and Estragon Sauce
Lamb Chop with Roasted Bell Peppers, Green Olive Tapenade and Thyme Sauce
Pink Salmon with a smoked topping and Sauce Raifort

Dessert and Coffee

Wine from about £17 per bottle
Entertainment on the terrace

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